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Sexual health education bill has supporters, detractors

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
04/14/2017 06:32:05 AM EDT

By Katie Lannan

State House News Service

BOSTON -- Supporters of a bill requiring schools offering sexual health education to do so in a "medically accurate, age-appropriate" manner on Wednesday described it as a way to protect young people from sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancies and abusive relationships.

Rep. Paul Brodeur, a co-sponsor of the House version of the bill, told the Joint Committee on Education that the legislation takes a comprehensive approach to sexual education, covering contraception use with a focus on preventing pregnancy and disease transmission, the "benefits of abstinence and delayed sexual activity," and issues of consent, gender identity and sexual orientation.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. James O'Day and Sen. Sal DiDomenico, would require that school districts offering sex education adopt a policy ensuring parental notification, allow parents to opt their children out, and provide curriculum "appropriate for students regardless of gender, race, disability status, sexual orientation, or gender identity."

"By supporting the Healthy Youth Act, you're giving us the tools we need to keep ourselves safe, and you're sending us the message that our sexual health matters and that it should be taken seriously, instead of leaving us with stigma and shame and confusion and midnight Google searches trying to fill in the gaps of what our schools have failed to teach us," Isabela Schettino, a recent Brookline High School graduate, told the committee.

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Opponents of the bill raised concerns that it would take control away from parents.

"Instead of parents and educators in their local communities deciding what's appropriate for their children, it's bureaucrats at the Department of Education getting to decide what's age-appropriate," said Andrew Beckwith, the president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

As an example of content that he considered inappropriate, Beckwith read aloud a section of a middle-school workbook that discussed oral and anal sex.

The Massachusetts Family Institute later sent out a press release highlighting that the hearing was held during Holy Week.

Parents who testified said reviewing the curriculum would pose a burden as it can be difficult for them to access classroom materials that are not sent home.

Sheeba Arnold, a Burlington mother of boys in the first and third grade, said she tries to keep up with what her children are learning but has never seen any of their textbooks.

"On a day-to-day basis, what's going on and what is taught to them, I have no control over," she said.

O'Day said districts would not have to include sexual education in their curriculum if they do not want to, and that course materials would be "readily available" for parents to review.

"We are in no way trying to mandate this to anybody," the West Boylston Democrat said. "We think everyone should take it like we think everyone should take English and math, but if a parent determines it is not something they want their child to be subject to, they don't have to."

A version of the bill last session earned a favorable report from the Education Committee and passed the Senate 32-6 in November 2015. It was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee the next week but never reached the House floor for a vote.

Rep. Chris Walsh, the committee's House vice chair, said his daughter was in a "very dangerous relationship for a while." He said education like what is called for in the bill is "the kind of thing that I think could have made huge strides in giving her the tools to think about life in a little bit longer timeframe than people do at 13."

Zohar Preminger, a Brookline High senior who is bisexual, told the committee she was abused by a former partner when she was 14. She praised the bill for requiring sex education to include all sexual orientations and conversations about consent.

"Based on my personal experiences, I truly believe that if we had more conversations in school about warning signs of abuse and patterns of positive relationships, and not just in a heterosexual sense, we would be able to help students to prevent abuse and get out of unhealthy relationships," she said.

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